


I am not the River Styx

by hauntedpoem



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, No Sex, Other, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, liberal use of charms, squib Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:41:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23962540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpoem/pseuds/hauntedpoem
Summary: The centaurs found Tom sometime after that dreadful day in May. He was naked, bruised and scared and he wanted Harry, he screamed for Harry. It was probably the one thing that kept him alive when Bane wanted nothing but to loose an arrow through his throat and be done with it.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	1. Drops

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this multi-chaptered (hopefully) story was inspired by Never Satisfied (from Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire.  
>  _I'm not the River Styx to embrace you nine times.../Je ne suis pas le Styx pour t'embrasser neuf fois (fr.)_  
>  According to classical mythology, Styx is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. According to some versions, the Styx had miraculous powers and could make someone invulnerable. According to one tradition, Achilles was dipped in the waters of the river by his mother during his childhood, acquiring invulnerability, with exception of his heel, by which his mother held him. The only spot where Achilles was vulnerable was, therefore, that heel, where he was struck and killed by an arrow during the Trojan War. This is the source of the expression Achilles' heel, a metaphor for a vulnerable spot.
> 
> Baudelaire's poem references some other classical mythology characters such as Proserpina (Roman myth.)/ Persephone (Greek myth.).
> 
> You can read the poem and several of its official literary translations [ here ](https://fleursdumal.org/poem/123) .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, the characters belong to JKR and I am simply borrowing them.  
> Also, if you notice something amiss about grammar & co., please **do point it out to me** because I don't have a beta and I am a very messy writer.  
> Enjoy!

“ _Horcrux_ ,” Harry said with gritted teeth, shivering slightly. This area in the Ministry was perhaps one of the most avoided, not because of the inherent confounding charms that pushed away any lost employees but because it took enough nastiness to keep any curious cat from strolling too far down the Department of Mystery's dungeons.

The tall mirror's surface seemed to have liquified and Harry walked right through it, past the dark stone where it hanged from ominously. Cold air percolated the dark hallway as if his presence there disturbed the sentient granite.

His breath coiled into smoke-like twirls. Condensation gathered on his lip, a kiss. Several candles were lit up in the air, too far out of his reach. They floated like fairy lights marking the way for him in this surreal territory.

The shadows they cast lengthened as Harry’s own _Lumos_ spell joined them.

It never got any easier for Harry. Never.

Every time he finished his Auror duty for the day he felt the pull, slowly worming through his skin and tugging at his belly-button, like a poorly-concealed portkey.

The centaurs found _him_ , deep in the Forbidden Forest. They found him for Harry.

It was a couple of days since the battle and Harry trod slowly through the fallen boulders that sustained some of Hogwarts' bridges over the lake. Bane of all creatures - persons, as per Hermione's new SPEW agenda, was the one that half-dragged Harry with him, and because Harry was never alone, could not be alone after all that happened, Ron, Hermione and Ginny too, have been dragged into the mess. 

Bane slowed his galloping to a casual trot which would have taken them long hours to reach the spot; it took Hermione a while to negotiate Apparating them to the damn place, all the time Bane refusing to give up the reason why he demanded Harry's presence of all people.

As undiplomatically as ever, Ron voiced his suspicion that the centaurs were probably trying to get rid of Harry since they were such cowards when it came to siding with him against Voldemort. Hermione elbowed him to shut up but then again, what could Harry do? They were their own persons.

And then they found him.

He was naked, bruised and scared and he wanted Harry, he screamed for Harry. It was probably the one thing that kept him alive when Bane wanted nothing but to loose an arrow through the man's throat and be done with it. 

It took both Hermione and Harry to stop Ginny from throwing _Crucio_ after _Crucio_ and torturing Tom to death.

It took several minutes for Harry to explain to them how he knew Tom, while Ginny seethed and threatened to leave him for doing this to her.

It took Hermione a while to convince them that this was beyond them and that they should resort to being civil and work this out... somehow.

And so the Ministry had to intervene. Shakelbolt and Robards exerted a lot of influence to keep the whole thing contained otherwise, the wizarding world would have had a meltdown.

It took Harry a month until he could visit regularly and a year for Ginny to break it up with him because she couldn't, absolutely couldn't understand why he would let _him_ live and not just throw an _Avada Kedavra_ at him.

It took Ron and Hermione three more painful years of walking on eggshells around each other until without much fanfare Ron gave up on Auror training to join his brother's business and with great difficulty accepted that it was for the best that he and Hermione remained _just_ friends. 

It took Harry seven to understand why he kept coming back, to him, to Tom, when all his other ties were fraught with pain and guilt. 

After what felt like an eternity of walking alone only to the sound of his echoing steps, Harry reached another wall. With a hollow _Diffindo_ , he closed his left hand over the tip of his wand and the cup of his palm filled with blood. This was to be the last time he would do it.

The Malfoy-Grangers have militated from the very beginning that there was no basis for Tom's imprisonment anymore. This Tom was not Voldemort, well, not entirely. Harry agreed with them. 

The thought of Hermione and Draco now as a married couple reinforced how surreal this felt for him. Once again, the hurdles never seemed to end; they just got bigger, spacier. If Harry could take it...

Closing his fist, he had to remember that this pain was temporary. His eyes avoided the cut until enough of it bubbled slightly over his fingers, hot and infused with magic; he placed the palm on the wall in front of him and into the rough rock.

The blood was greedily absorbed and the stone began parting for him as slowly as if testing with each drop if it was really him.

 _Blood magic_.

He watched transfixed as the rough granite rocks suck in his blood, bright ruby red, with an iron tang. His nostrils filled with the smell of the sea, of rust, of rawness. He only finds it in here, ensconced by these walls; his chest fills with an air of anticipation.

Harry’s heart beats faster now. Blood soaks his hand and he fights the urge of _scourgifying_ it then closing the cut with an _Episkey_.

Harry finds himself in a cream coloured entry room and barely has any time to toe-off his shoes when Tom appears from his sitting room, unable to disguise his quivering anymore.

He looks strangely excited to see him, Harry notices. It's been a week of waiting alone and he must have been feeling bored out of his skull with only muggle literature and the old gramophone.

Harry tries to regain his balance without making a mess of the floor, careful of the walls, keeping the still bloodied hand to himself.

“You’re late” in long strides he reaches Harry in the hallway and grabs his arm, pulling it closer to himself. Tom's voice sounded disgruntled. He hated breaches in _their_ routine.

Harry stops himself from quipping a sarcastic “How would you know?” because Tom’s never seen sunlight ever since that fateful day in May. But at his insistence, Harry’s brought him a clock and he imagines Tom counting the hours, starved for their next encounter.

Tom’s voice is gruff and raw and new because he has only been talking to himself all this time and the anger is gone when his eyes land on his prize, Harry’s _diffindo_ must be a piece of art because he can keep bleeding for hours, slow, steady, bright red.

Tom’s nostrils flare and absorb the smell, the smell of Harry, the smell of blood, the smell of earth and rain and forest and sea.

“Do it, do it, do it,” he chants, obsessive and needy. And Harry does it, wording it clearly, slowly, for Tom to savour the ripple of magic. “ _Episkey_.”

The wound closes too fast for Tom’s liking and Harry blames it on his strong magic which for the past years only focused on Harry’s self-preservation.

Bruises and small cuts didn’t seem to stick out for him longer than hours. He had Voldemort – Tom- to thank for that. They had fights over it but now Tom was savouring the show, addicted.

He was addicted to magic, to the flow of it, to the display of it, to the power of it – Tom was a squib now, and magic was the worst of all drugs to be addicted to.

Harry was witnessing it with Tom. It was never enough, once one had it, they could never let go of the memory of it.

When there is no wound on display for him, Tom’s eyes just rest on Hary’s palm and Harry prepares to _scourgify_ , wandlessly, because he’s in no mood for a show. These are all simple things, simple things they’ve agreed to a year ago. Tom wants to watch. And Harry usually frowns because he realizes that despite the small mercy it might seem to an outsider, he is not helping Tom’s addiction. 

He’s prepared to retreat his hand from Tom’s grasp but Tom catches it, entranced and somewhat ashamed by his bold need. 

“I’ll do it.” Harry doesn’t want to think of how Tom or Voldemort, one of the greatest and darkest wizards in history was now reduced to do things the muggle way, wipe his hand and clean the blood after Harry, wash dishes and dust, wash and bathe and eat. Now he does all these things but in the beginning, it was all very difficult for him. Tom was angry and when he wasn’t that, he was despondent. It took them many years to reach this point of understanding. 

Harry had to do something about it, so he did. He charged himself with taking care of an addicted person but he found himself encouraging that addiction once more, in a different setting.

Tom’s eyelashes were lowered, obscuring his dark brown eyes. Harry’s gaze followed the little movements on Tom’s face, from the almost imperceptible twitch under his eyes, to the impossible paleness stretched high on sharp cheekbones and then the hollow cheeks that spoke of another kind of hunger, one that showed raw in the movements of his lips and his white teeth.

When his eyes rested on Tom’s lips, Hary had to confess he was a bit shocked at what the other was about to do.

“Just let me,” he keened, “taste you”, the desperation was barely contained. Tom lapped gently at the palm of Hary’s hand and all that transpired from this interaction were the wet sounds that his tongue made mixing with the stubbornness of drying blood. And Tom’s moan as he swallowed it all. Harry’s eyes followed the movement of the plump lower lip as Tom nipped at it, probably frustrated to be showing this weakness. His adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and Harry could hear the silent keen of temporary satisfaction. It permeated the air like oil soaking a rag.

“Tom,” Harry allowed himself to break the spell.

Tom clung to him like a dying man, his brown eyes darkened, pupils overblown. There in the hallway, Tom broke into Harry's space and filled it like a stone in a too-large shoe. Harry felt weak; he realized he couldn't say no, not to Tom


	2. Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny makes an appearance.
> 
> Tom takes pleasure in making Harry feel guilty.  
> Depends on how you see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't know what I am doing. This is more of... an intermediate chapter... not much, I know.

They walk through the snow holding hands. Ginny’s freckles seem darker on her pale face. It’s probably because of the cold and lack of sunlight. But she looks healthy, and even though a bit alarming, that whiteness always gave her a noble look. Harry’s touch is that of a friend. He warms her hand as he ensconces it in the pocket of his navy winter coat.

“Just like old times, eh?” She quips. Harry just smiles. There is a dull flame that refuses to be extinguished when it comes to Ginevra. He’s always admired her and he understands her choice now better. Why should she put up with this insanity? With him, still waking up in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat, with his diatribes on self-sacrifice? Ginny is young and has a world ahead of her. By comparison, Harry is young too, but he feels old, older than she can imagine. His fingers tighten on her hand. She is here and she is fierce. He loves that but how could he love her when his mind is full of other thoughts, dark thoughts, Tom-induced thoughts?

And she’s quick to judge and take a stance. Ginevra’s resolute like that. He listens as she talks about Neville and how well he’s been doing. Neville is always there for her, listening, making a plan on how to make things better for her, for them. If Ginny needed him like that, Harry knows he wouldn’t have been able to provide. Neville loves her more than she loves him and Ginny loved Harry more than he loved her. She would forever be number two in his world. First was his desire to self-sacrifice.

“You may not believe me, but I am happy for you, Gin.”

Her smile is shrewd. Ginevra did well for herself there.

He would never raise up to the challenge, he will always fall short just because of his nature. He will always frustrate her. And she would have kept on loving him until her smiles would have been replaced by tears. Harry could have had that but then, who would have played martyr? He was too set into his role. When Ginny left, it was like a weight was pulled off his chest.

“And what did you want to show me?”

Her voice pulls him back to reality. Ginny will always be a no-nonsense woman. Harry could never compete with that.

  
“This.” He motions to the house. “It’s a magic-proof shelter.” It is small and unimpressive. The snow is piled up until it reaches the first window. There is a stave peeking out from a plot of land indicating that indeed, this house comes with a garden.

“Wow. In the middle of no-where, arrival by portkey, completely isolated…” Ginevra Weasley frowns. “You think holding _that_ _monster_ in here is more humane? Oh well, your call if he escapes the place and embarks on a killing spree in the nearest village.”

“You really read my mind.” Harry sounds winded. It’s not like he didn’t think of this himself.

“It will be warded, though. Hermione…”

“Of course, the _bigot-hater-Hermione_ …”

“Gin…” Harry sounds tired.

She takes his hand in hers this time. There are so many hurtful things they could say about their friends and about themselves… they really know how to hurt each other, they did the best thing by breaking up, after all.

“I still can’t believe she’s friends with _that_ _cockroach_!”

“Me neither.” At least Harry agrees with her on this. Whenever he sees Hermione and Malfoy – because he will always be Malfoy, not Draco- Harry just has flashbacks of their sixth year and the many ways in which the three of them thought of actually tormenting the Slytherin.

“She’s still my friend but the cognitive dissonance must be so hard on her.”

“And how’s Ron and Lavender?”

“When your owl woke me up at six in the morning, I wouldn’t have thought I would be giving you any good news but… you know what? They actually work well together.”

“Merlin! Imagine if we hit thirty and we still speak to each other!”

“I can see it… judging by how well-adjusted we all are now…” Ginny trails off. Harry’s using his wand to carve a path through the snow and fishes a key from his other pocket.

When he opens the door, a strong, musky smell wafts through.

“Ewww… well… Good luck with that and leaving _You-Now-Know-Who_ to rot in here.”

This actually makes Harry laugh. This is Ginny at her finest. She’s still not okay with Tom Riddle coming back to life.

“Well…depends on whether you think of revenge as the same as retributive justice.” Ginny inspects the kitchen and swipes a finger over a dusty cupboard. “Let him scrub these himself, I say.”

Harry bites the dried skin of his upper lip and holds in a sneeze.

“He still says he doesn’t remember any of this so…it is kind of difficult to deal justice.” Harry managed to bite the dry piece of skin off and now his upper lip is bleeding. "He’s been swiped clean, apparently. Imagine a Tom Riddle that never knew soul-ripping magic."

“He’s what? Twenty now?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“And to imagine that I was just eleven when he wanted to kill me in the Chamber of Secrets… he says he doesn’t remember that, does he now?”

Harry is already inspecting the living room. “No, he doesn’t. He only has the memories before _horcruxing_. He was sixteen when we found him, remember?” She hums behind him. “He committed his first murder in June, more precisely June 13, 1943. We found him in May but that’s not the point. The point is that Malfoy has a whole theory on how and why he’s come back like that.” Harry trails off.

“And does it converge with your theory?”

Ginny’s right eyebrow arches and her pale blue eyes pierce his. Harry has to blink and swallow to concentrate on his thoughts.

“Yes, I agree with Malfoy because that was my theory as well.”

“Harry, you died.”

Now it’s his turn to return the gaze. “That makes my theory better than Malfoy's. Mine makes more sense, at least to me.”

“And what’s that, care to share?”

“You talked about retribution before. Well, I think of this as… his chance for atonement.”

Ginny’s mouth is a hard line. Severe. None of the Weasley has that trait but she does. That’s why Harry likes her. Loves her, even. But he didn’t love her enough, enough to keep her.

“And you’re what, Harry? An instrument for his penance? When will you be free of him?”

“I don’t think I will be free of him, ever.”

Down in the cave, Harry’s walk is stilted. His feet are half-frozen from his earlier adventure through waist-length snow. That and a sip from Ginny’s whiskey flask didn’t really help. He’s cold still but now his mind’s buzzing with unclear thoughts. He’s carrying takeaway in his left hand and that’s still fresh and hot.

“Diffindo!”

Blood wells into the palm of his hand and Harry smears it on the jagged rock. Tom’s right there, waiting anxiously.

“Epsikey” Harry murmurs, trying to ignore Tom whispering the word as well. “I have good news, Tom.”

Tom looks at the Indian takeaway boxes impassively as Harry tells him about the house and the preparations they are making for him. he watches harry's hands place forks and spoons on the table. 

"Here, let me help," Tom offers uselessly.

Harry’s eyes land on the rash on Tom’s hands, or rather the self-induced scratches on the back of his palms and his lower arms.

It’s the jumper. Tom’s allergic to that scratchy wool of the jumper and Harry can only imagine the welts on his skin.

“Hermione will bring you medicine again, I am sorry.”

Tom savours the words, apparently. It’s like his main role is making Harry feel guilty about him, stuck here, a prisoner.

“Don’t be.” He murmurs, his voice deep and intimate, crawling into Harry’s ear.

Sometimes, it feels like this is Harry’s penance, watching Tom pull the sleeves up, revealing more scabs and scratches on the pale flesh. It’s not like he has any sun in this hell hole they stuck him in. He's sun-deprived and heals slowly, Harry shuts his eyes at the image of a laboratory. 

Is Harry’s guilt enough to show? Tom hurting himself like this, just to feel something. They really are the _monsters_ , he tells himself sometimes. To do this to someone who hasn’t done anything… yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had other intentions with this fic but as I was writing, I grew really dissatisfied with the way it came along. Let's say I have no particular plan for where this is going. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
